Oh, what a lovely day! Almost a decade after George Miller stunned the film-loving world with the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, the director is back with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The film, a prequel to Fury Road, will focus on a younger Furiosa in the days before she tries to escape from Immortan Joe.
This will be the fifth film in the Mad Max franchise, which spans more than 40 years, going back to 1979. Until now, every film in the franchise has focused on Max Rockatansky and his adventures through a dystopian wasteland. Here’s everything we know about this prequel spinoff, which will be the first entry in the franchise not built around Max.
What is the release date for Furiosa?
Furiosa will hit Australian theaters on May 23, 2024, with the film reaching U.S. cinemas the following day. However, like Fury Road in 2015, Furiosa will be screened on May 15, 2024, at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie may not be out yet, but audiences of an early test screening in Burbank reportedly had nothing high praise for it.
Furiosa will be one of the two major releases set to debut over Memorial Day weekend, with the other being Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Fury Road was released on the same weekend in 2015 and went on to have a fairly successful run in theaters. Audiences can only wait and see how Furiosa’s theatrical run will compare to its predecessor’s.
What is the plot of Furiosa?
Although many of the movie’s plot details are being kept under wraps, we do have a broad outline of what the movie will be about, thanks to its official synopsis:
“As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.”
Of course, we already know that Fury Road chronicles Furiosa’s attempts to return to the Green Place and to the only real home that she ever knew. This movie appears to depict how she was ripped away from that beautiful paradise and her initial plans to return there.
Who is in the cast of Furiosa?
Because this movie is a prequel to Fury Road, almost the entire cast will be composed of newbies to the Mad Max saga. Anya Taylor-Joy is set to take over the role of Furiosa from Charlize Theron. She has already established herself as one of the stars of her generation thanks to roles in The Queen’s Gambit, The Witch, and many other movies and TV shows. She’ll be joined by Chris Hemsworth, who is set to play the movie’s villain, Warlord Dementus. Dementus will be a bit of a shift for Hemsworth, who is best known to audiences worldwide for playing Thor in the Marvel universe for the last ten years.
Hemsworth and Taylor-Joy will be joined by Tom Burke and Alyla Browne. Nathan Jones and Angus Sampson, who played Rictus Erectus and the Organic Mechanic, respectively, in Fury Road, are returning to those roles for Furiosa.
Is there a trailer for Furiosa?
The first trailer for Furiosa was released on November 30, 2023, with the caption: “5 years after the collapse, a young Furiosa is taken from her family. She will devote the rest of her life to finding her way home. This is her odyssey.”
The trailer features jaw-dropping images of the Wasteland — and of plenty of tricked-out cars — which will be familiar to anyone who loved Fury Road. It remains to be seen exactly how similar Furiosa’s plot will be to Fury Road’s. The trailer certainly leans into action, though, suggesting to fans of the franchise that this prequel will have a lot in common with the original film.
A second trailer was released on March 19, 2024. It shows more of what we’d expect in a George Miller action picture: outrageous characters, explosions galore, and a visual style that is completely unique and thrilling.
Will Furiosa play in theaters?
Furiosa’s initial run will be exclusively in theaters and will likely end up on streaming services a few months after its premiere. However, Fury Road’s reputation as one of the greatest action movies ever made has only grown since its debut, so Furiosa may spend several months in theaters before it heads to streaming. While it’s impossible to say for sure where the movie will be streaming. But since it’s a Warner Bros. release, chances are that it will first land on Max.
Images from the film suggest a wild ride
Thanks to a cover story from Empire Magazine, we’ve got our first glimpse at a version of Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa, which is much closer to the one we’re all familiar with. On the cover, she stands in front of a monster truck that Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus rides in. Although the full cover story hasn’t debuted online yet, we’ve also got a couple of other stills, including one that shows Dementus surrounded by his followers and another of Furiosa in what appears to be a workshop at a point in the film when she still has both of her arms.
Overall, Furiosa’s aesthetic seems roughly in line with that of Fury Road, which makes sense. Furiosa is an explicit prequel to that first installment, and all that remains unclear is exactly how much time is supposed to have passed between the two films.
Are there posters for Furiosa?
Yes! On April 8, Warner Bros. released a new poster for the movie, which you can view below.
Chris Hemsworth doesn’t think Dementus is very nice
Elsewhere in that Empire story, we got a sense of what Chris Hemsworth thinks of the villainous Dementus, his character in Furiosa. “He’s a pretty horrible individual,” Hemsworth explained.
Even as he commits atrocities, though, Hemsworth said there’s a certain logic to his character’s actions. “Through the whole film we kept coming back to, ‘This is evil, but what is the intention behind it?’ It’s not just sadistic insanity. There is a real purpose, the wheels are turning, he’s plotting and planning and ten steps ahead of everyone else,” he explains.
Hemsworth even went so far as to suggest that Dementus sees himself as something of a father figure for Furiosa. “I think that’s how he sees himself,” the Thor actor explained. “I think there’s a paternal quality and nature to the relationship in his eyes. [Furiosa] would, I’m sure, argue to her death the complete opposite.”
Hemsworth has promised some wild stunts
In addition to discussing his character’s motivations, Hemsworth also details the incredible motorcycle that Dementus drives throughout much of the film.
“The chariot bike is the wildest piece of machinery I’ve ever driven, and I loved every second of it,” he explained.
He also said that this new installment would have plenty of action. “I mean, hanging off a crane at one point and being loaded onto a monster truck, and then on the monster truck, someone unclips me off a harness, and the truck spins away into a burnout,” he said. “How this world comes from one of the kindest individuals, I’ll never know…”
